College football all-time power rankings: The 30 best programs ever
By Dante Pryor
2. Ohio State Buckeyes
- All-Time Record: 927-326-53
- All-Time Bowl Record: 24-26
- National Championships: 8 (claimed)
- Conference Championships: 40
- Consensus All-Americans: 87
- Heisman Winners: 7
The word that best describes the Ohio State Buckeyes is consistency. The Buckeyes have played football for 109 seasons with only nine losing seasons. That is one losing season every decade of football. There are seasons where Ohio State might not be in the national conversation but rarely are the Buckeyes ever bad.
The Buckeyes winning percentage (.730) is second all-time behind Boise State and their wins (927) put them only behind hated rival Michigan. In the 86 seasons of the AP poll, Ohio State has finished ranked 59 times. The Buckeyes have begun the season ranked in the AP top 25 for 32 consecutive seasons.
The Buckeyes are currently on an eight-season streak of finishing the season ranked and a three-season streak of finishing ranked in the top five. From 1968-1977 either Ohio State or Michigan won the Big Ten Championship. The Buckeyes have owned the Big Ten in the 21st Century, winning seven outright conference titles and a share of four others.
Ohio State Football is known for its coaches. One of the first that comes to mind is Woody Hayes. During Hayes’ 28 seasons at Ohio State, he won 205 games, 13 Big Ten championships and five national championships. Hayes brought the Buckeyes to national prominence and rekindled the rivalry between the Buckeyes and the Wolverines.
After Hayes’ last national championship in 1970, the Buckeyes would not win another until Youngstown, Ohio native Jim Tressel became the head coach in 2001. Tressel would win his only national title in 2002, playing for two others in 2006 and 2007. After a scandal forced Tressel to resign, another Ohio Native, Urban Meyer, came to coach the Buckeyes.
Meyer caused a paradigm shift in the Big Ten. The conference still had a regional feel to it when Meyer took over in 2012. Meyer aggressively recruited nationally at Ohio State and won a national championship in 2014, winning at least 10 games every season in Columbus. Current head coach Ryan Day has taken the Buckeyes to the National Semifinal in his first season and looks to do the same again this season.
Check out the latest Buckeyes items at Fanatics.
Ohio State never seems to have let down when they transition head coaches; a testament to their consistency.